The List: MMA's ageless wonders

For too long, our writers’ hyper-specific arguments have been confined to the private corridors of the Internet. Welcome to The List, where we take their instant message bickerings, add a little polish, and make them public. Today: the three fighters who refuse to let age get the best of them.

* * * *

1. Dan Henderson, because you know you were all thinking it

Ben Fowlkes: Do I really have to be the guy who picks Dan Henderson (30-11 MMA, 7-5 UFC) here? Fine. I’ll be that guy. Someone has to, because there’s just no way we can have this conversation without mentioning his name. Hendo is 43 freaking years old. His first pro MMA fight was in 1997, when I was still in high school and Mike Bohn was doing whatever the Canadian equivalent of T-ball is (I assume it has something to do with hockey). Henderson did the MMA org trifecta by fighting in the UFC, PRIDE, and Strikeforce, and you know what else? He enjoyed sustained periods of unequivocal awesomeness in all those promotions. He was already 40 years old when knocked out Fedor Emelianenko. He was 41 when he participated in maybe the best fight of all-time in his first meeting with Mauricio Rua. Even now, as his age has started to show, he can still relocate a man’s nose to another region of his face with one right hand. He’s also gentlemanly enough to let the referee know when his opponent is finished fighting. Unless the opponent is Michael Bisping.

“But Ben,” you’re saying to yourself right now, “what about the testosterone-replacement therapy?” Yeah, that’s a valid point. Hendo had some help along the way. He was the grandaddy of TRT in MMA, and now it’s going away right around the same time that he seems to be nearing the end. Maybe that’s fitting. Or maybe Henderson will keep on keeping on, TRT or no, until he is dragged from the cage and forced into his rocking chair. Because you know a man who loves fighting enough to let it do to his face what it’s done to Hendo’s, which resembles nothing so much as a warped frying pan these days, sure isn’t going to quit easily.

2. Mark Hunt, because he still doesn’t give a what

Steven Marrocco: Sure, he’s probably not my biggest fan. Put aside your tape recorder for a minute, though, and consider what Mark Hunt (9-8-1 MMA, 4-2-1 UFC) has done in the sport at his age. He just turned 40 years old. #RallyforMarkHunt is a distant memory, and yet he’s still fighting top guys in the UFC. Until recently, he was beating a lot of them, too, and doing it with the same I-don’t-give-a-what attitude that so thoroughly endears him to fans.

Also consider where he came from before ever strapping on the ol’ four-ounce gloves. Before he minted the one-punch walk-off KO in the octagon, he was doing the same with 14-ounce pads in K-1. MMA’s usual posterboys for everlasting youth – Randy Couture and Henderson – came from wrestling, and no one will argue that the world’s oldest sport isn’t the ultimate crucible. K-1, however, is positively brutal to the body, not to mention to the brain. At one point, Hunt was crowned the best kickboxer in the world when he won the 2001 K-1 Grand Prix.

Hunt stumbled, and stumbled, and stumbled again in MMA. And yet after losing six straight and basically getting one last shot in the UFC, he went on a four-fight tear that put him in the conversation for a title shot. He did that with a lot of miles on his body.

We know Hunt is probably never going to be champion – Junior dos Santos was the first bearer of that bad news – but we still root for him anyway. Why? In an age of image, he seems to care very little about his. He only wants to knock a few heads off and get paid. Kudos to him for that.

3. Cung Le, because you didn’t expect him to be here

Mike Bohn: When Cung Le (9-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) made his MMA debut under the now-defunct Strikeforce banner in 2006, many thought his career would merely consist of a couple fights to help the upstart promotion get off the ground.

Le’s preexisting relationship with former Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker dated back to his days as a kickboxing promoter. Given his age at the time (almost 34), Le was seemingly brought purely to sell tickets in the San Jose area and show off his exciting, standup oriented style. Nearly a decade and 11 fights later, though, Le is fighting, and winning, in the world’s premier MMA organization – the UFC – with his 42nd birthday just around the corner.

What started as nothing more than an experimental crossover from kickboxing has turned into an over-eight-year MMA career where he has fought legendary fighters such as Wanderlei Silva, Rich Franklin and Frank Shamrock, whose arm he broke to win the Strikeforce middleweight title. Oh yeah, and he did all this while pursuing an action movie career.

Moreover, Le’s skills have flourished far beyond expectations. Sure, his striking skills were remarkable prior to joining MMA, and they’ve won him multiple fight-night bonuses. But since then, he has developed some of the sturdiest takedown defense in the sport to ensure he can implement those stand-up talents.

While injuries have prevented him from fighting since a crushing knockout of Franklin in November 2012, Le has kept busy coaching “The Ultimate Fighter: China” and says he intends on completing the final three bouts on his current UFC contract before making any decisions regarding his future. Even though his ceiling in the sport is clear and his time is running out, there’s no denying he’s one of MMA’s ageless wonders.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?